


The Desert

by generalkenobi715



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Obi-Wan Kenobi Needs a Hug, Tatooine (Star Wars)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:01:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25604005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/generalkenobi715/pseuds/generalkenobi715
Summary: “The desert is ruthless.  It takes everything from you.”Obi-wan couldn't help but agree.
Kudos: 25





	The Desert

“The desert is ruthless. It takes everything from you.”

Obi-wan seemed to remember a briefing, a young Ahsoka recounting her trek across the desert with her new master. How she’d questioned Obi-wan, asked him what Anakin had meant. 

He remembered barely collecting himself enough to respond. It was as if he could feel Anakin’s pain through Ahsoka’s lips. The fresh loss permeating the air around them, the contents of a report capturing the torment of a boy making a return descent into Hell.

Now, looking out over the Dune Sea, Anakin’s words were warped, changed. Blown apart like the dunes themselves, scattering like grains of sand in a windstorm.

A cry from the bundle he held under his cloak pulled him out of his thoughts. Shielding his face against the setting suns, Obi-wan pulled the creature he rode to a stop, opening his robe to look down at Luke’s face.

Giant blue eyes stared back at him. He ignored the jolt of recognition that crackled through his chest. Luke let out another whimper, and Obi-wan carefully dismounted, bouncing the boy gently while he led them over to a rocky outcropping ahead.

He tied up his lead before ducking underneath the rocks, sitting propped up against a large boulder, Luke still swaddled in his arms. And still crying. Bail had managed to scrape together some milk for the journey, and Obi-wan pulled it from his pack.

Luke latched onto the makeshift bottle immediately. Poor boy was just hungry.

Obi-wan let out a sigh, half in exhaustion, half in relief. Within a day, so much had changed - so much he could never have prepared for. Least of all, perhaps, this. He’d known, of course, but the undeniable reality of the tiny child that he held was something he could never have anticipated. How beautiful he was, how piercing those eyes were after all that had happened. How dependent he was, how small he seemed in an enormous galaxy.

Yet in that entire galaxy, here the two of them were - back in the desert. Back where it all began. Rocking Luke gently in his arms, watching the boy’s eyes grow heavy as he drifted back to sleep, all he could hear were Anakin’s words.

“The desert is ruthless.”

Obi-wan couldn’t help but agree. The sands of Tatooine had thrust an innocent boy into a life of slavery and hardship. Its suns had fanned his skin and put sweat on his brow as he’d worked to survive, and lit his path when he returned to a place that only meant pain and submission. Its creatures had taken the only person that had shown him love against the harshness of the wind and the dunes, and its moonless night had broken a boy only just beginning to be made whole.   
The desert was ruthless.

“It takes everything from you.”

It was here that Obi-wan hesitated.  
No, the desert hadn’t taken everything.

It had given him Anakin.

It had given him a boy that would become his reason for rising in the morning, his reason for sitting watch into the late hours of the night. It had given him a best friend, a brother. It had given him a person that would fill the gaping chasm left by the master he’d lost - a man who would take up a piece of his heart that was meant to be sealed behind walls of stone.

That boy was gone, now. The desert hadn’t taken him.  
He’d lost him. The blame was his.

But the desert hadn’t stopped giving.

Here, warm in his arms, innocent and loving, was another boy of Tatooine. Another boy that would live a life made of dunes and sunlight, another soul to guard with his own. Another boy to rise for in the day, another boy to watch over in the night.

Another Skywalker to love, for he knew he already did.

He held Luke closer to his chest, folding his body inwards towards the tiny newborn nestled in the folds of his cloak. He felt the rise and fall of a small chest against his, the promise of another love that would live on.

He blinked tears from his eyes as acceptance dawned.

Anakin had been wrong.

The desert had given him everything he’d ever needed, and here it stood, ready for a new age.

The desert had given him a purpose. A reason to go on. A second chance.

A new hope.

It was here, breathing steady, heartbeat strong. In the wake of disaster, after everything he’d lost, through the fog of pain he felt, the desert had remained. And Obi-wan had returned, broken and bruised, to live another life - one incredibly different, but still very much the same.

For when Tatooine’s suns set, the silhouette of a Skywalker would always stand tall against the horizon.   
And Kenobi, for whatever reason - be it stupidity or devotion or longing or love - would always stand just behind, to guard and to keep.

He could think of no better way to honor the desert’s greatest gift.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed, thanks for reading!!


End file.
